OK, it's not surprising for a "pre-release release," But Google wave still needs some time in the oven.
Google released the results of its online survey from its limited customer base, and listed a few things people did like (able to integrate messages and documents and add widgets) and did not like (integration with things like email and speed.)
The 'likes' are a bit weak, since they are what Google advertised the thing would do in the first place. The dislikes are primarily things that Google needs to fix before serving.
Here are a few comments from other prominent techies:
He first complained on Oct. 1 that it's confusing and a productivity sink. Since things are not added linearly -- the new stuff doesn't appear at the top -- you can't keep track of the conversation.
On Nov 27 he got into a little more detail. The interface is crappy, it's hard to find the good stuff among the junk, and there are no permalinks to send the good stuff to others.
Louis Gray took a snapshot to show how confusing the interface is:
On Nov. 26, Paul Bucheit, the creator of gmail (no longer with Google) wrote a piece for TechCrunch about the complaints:
No revisioning system to roll back to a previous version, can't permanently hide replies so screen gets too confusing, no notification on gmail or anywhere else that new comments have come it, the urls are complex and impossible to read.
Then, on Nov. 28, Bucheit got around to actually trying it and added more comments on his blog.
He says comparisons to Facebook and Twitter are "nonsensical" because it's not a social network, but more of "Google Docs meets Gmail." Thinks it's promising but needs refinement, and thinks some features will be eliminated. Like Scoble, he thinks the conversations need to be more linear. Then, when it's ready, Google should integrate it into Gmail.
The main takeaway seems to be that you should be glad you don't have it yet, unless you like to play with a rough system and help work out bugs. When it gets to a real beta (Google's term for a product actually being released) you can try it out and give Google advice on how to fix any bugs that remain.